Shop Lighting

[Joeman77]

I installed 12 5500 lumen shop lights from Rural King about a month ago. My shop is 36x36 with 20 foot ceiling. I was surprised how well they worked. They were on sale for $20 a piece.

I think I caught lights similar to yours on a "Black Friday" for $10 ea. I've tried hanging a few, I've only got a 9' ceiling & they are BRIGHT!

 

[aliva]

Getting back to the corn cob lights they are medium base E26 120 VAC.
Some of these are also available in Mogul base E39. So check before you consider purchasing

 

[pontiac428]

I think I found the right shop light...

 

[Nogoingback]

The more I research this subject the confuseder I get.

Keep it simple then. Everbody pretty much agrees the bright, white LEDs are the way to go.
You need both general area lighting as well as task specific lighting at the mill, lathe, workbench or whatever.
Direct wire LED tube replacements have dropped in price, are available at Home Depot and put out a ton of light.
Screw in LED spots work well over machines. How you lay them out just depends on your shop configuration.
By wiring task specific lights or (in a big shop) some of your area lights to different switches, you can save energy
by only lighting the areas you need.

 

[pontiac428]

@Nogoingback gives good advice with task (supplemental) lighting, and I do agree that simplicity is often the best approach.

So, here are a few things to know for reference. Don't get too wrapped up on what it means, just match your units before doing any math..

-Lux is luminous flux, think of it as light energy density.
-Lumens is energy output without regard to the area that a light casts. It directly relates to watts power output.
-One lumen per square foot equals one foot-candle which equals ~10 Lux.

How much light do you need?

-In the US, lighting recommendations for fine tasks with high contrast and low size require 500 Lux (50 foot-candles) and detail work of low contrast and small size require 1000 Lux (100 foot-candles) (Source: IESNA)
-If your shop is 1000 square feet, and you want 100 foot-candles of light, you need to shop for 100,000 Lumens worth of illumination. If you are looking at modest 5,000 Lumen strip light fixtures, then you should be looking at a total of 20 fixtures for your space as a starting point.

There is a lot of bad info out there (I know because I just bought $1400 worth of lights for my shop), so I thought I'd try to pass on something useful about lights. Not all light fixtures are appropriate, and as usual there's cheap and then there's quality, and we all have our own ways of managing that. Personal preference plays a big part with color temperature and lighting power. Ultimately, when you turn on the light switch what you see is largely going to be a result of light intensity. Hopefully this is useful if you're planning for some new light in your shop.

 

[GunsOfNavarone]

I put in (4) 2 tube led shop lights. They look like fluorescent shop light but are LED tubes (t5?) Anyway, 2 are at the far end and 2 are at the other end. They work great unless its summertime and I want to work with the garage door open. When I open the door, it slide up against the roof and blocks out the two at the far, garage door side. Stupid, but I don't know any alternatives.

 

[vocatexas]

I bought the Barrina T5s to put up in my shop. At $7.00 a light you can't beat the price and they are BRIGHT. A friend of mine installed them in his shop, and we replace the old florescent lights in our fire station with the Barrinas as well.

 

[Joeman77]

I put in (4) 2 tube led shop lights. They look like fluorescent shop light but are LED tubes (t5?) Anyway, 2 are at the far end and 2 are at the other end. They work great unless its summertime and I want to work with the garage door open. When I open the door, it slide up against the roof and blocks out the two at the far, garage door side. Stupid, but I don't know any alternatives.

Maybe an easy switch that opens when you raise the garage door breaking the circuit to the lights involved?

 

[GunsOfNavarone]

Thanks @Joeman77 its not any kind of danger, lights don’t get hot and they are a good 18” from the garage door, but when the door is up, those lights do nothing to light the garage. Oh to have a real shop. When we retire. I’m selling the house moving to Tennessee and making damn sure I have a free standing shop WITH NO CAR PARKING IN IT. But there is a lot of good lighting advice here....I will revisit it.

 

[ACHiPo]

I put in (4) 2 tube led shop lights. They look like fluorescent shop light but are LED tubes (t5?) Anyway, 2 are at the far end and 2 are at the other end. They work great unless its summertime and I want to work with the garage door open. When I open the door, it slide up against the roof and blocks out the two at the far, garage door side. Stupid, but I don't know any alternatives.

I have a similar situation in my shop. I’m toying with hanging LED strips below the door rails. There will still be a darker area under the door itself when it’s raised, but I can live with that.